sheer fabric of the soul
by LYNSPIRE
Summary: it starts on the battlefield of a thousand year war, as he trudges below a dying star, between the bleeding corpses of their allies. the scorched earth cracks beneath his feet, crumbling as he marches. or, Keith is convinced Lance can see souls, but may never get the chance to find out.
1. prologue

_prologue_

In the dark hours of the night, the castle was filled with ghosts.

Hunk knew this for sure. They followed him around like wisps of wind, singing in the back of his mind, fluttering past his weary bones as he trudged down hall after hall. They surrounded him, the ghosts of his parents, the ghosts of the kids who played 'mechanic' with him down the block—spiraling about, twirling in poised pirouettes, in his hazy vision.

Allura saw them, too. The princess sometimes glanced behind him as he entered the cockpit doors, as if a small child would come leaping through right after, or a kind mother would wave and greet with soft hellos. Her eyes were misted and cloudy when she scanned the holograms for Galra activity, in a panic despite Zarkon having fallen weeks before.

But along with Zarkon, fell Shiro.

Just one more ghost to linger, and it destroyed the yellow paladin with self-inflicted guilt. Hunk busied himself the best he could, he kept his eyes on his hands, he worked on meaningless trinkets and recipes to keep him busy, but despite the oil and the flour that coated his calloused palms he still imagined red blood seeping through.

Hunk was going crazy, he thought. So he latched onto Lance.

Lance was fine with this, of course. He let Hunk lurk in his room long after they both should've be asleep, he let Hunk linger a bit closer when they headed for the cockpit in the early hours of the morning, he applied creams and lotions to Hunk's face after a good long cry; Lance would bundle him with blankets in the break room when he couldn't sleep, telling him stories of the stretches of beaches he called Cuba.

"There are so many ghosts in this castle," Hunk had sobbed one night, "they dance around me all the time. I'm going crazy."

But Lance had laughed, cracked a joke, before replying with all seriousness and a thousand-watt grin, "Then let's dance with them!"

So that's how Hunk spent his birthday, fumbling through the Salsa in a hall, with the only music being Lance's melodious laughter and the tap of their bare feet.

* * *

Pidge was unsure, as most teenagers would be. Unsure—however, unlike most teenagers, the fate of the galaxy weighed on her shoulders, and the fate of her family lay in her hands. God, was it difficult sometimes, with the early mornings and late nights and rows and rows of code; she hated it. Sometimes, with guilt weighing in her heart and panic crackling in her chest she wished, desperately, that she had never let her father leave, never let her brother leave; she wished she'd never gone after them.

Now she was searching, in space, with all the resources in her grasp, resting just in her fingers or a little farther out, keeping her up in the late hours of the night, despite there being no moon to light up her rows of printed pages or sun to warn her the day.

Just space. Cold, dark space, seeping in her window with hues of purple and black and gray, threatening to swallow her hole.

And Shiro. Shiro was who she needed, a hand on her shoulder, an overwhelming presence of calm, safety, so she knew he would protect her, they would find them together.

Now Pidge has to find Shiro, too. That broke her more than the thought of her mother, sobbing over three empty coffins, and the bodies of her father and sibling floating out in the void.

Because without Shiro, it was just her—not _Pidge,_ the brainiac, cool and collected green paladin—but fifteen year old Katie Holt, small and alone in the most frightening part of the galaxy, rotting away over blinking computer screens and hopeless coordinates.

"Pidge?" A voice called.

Pidge didn't answer. The sobs shook her body, silent and pure; she didn't want him to see. Didn't want him here, in her trashed, disgusting room, didn't want him to see pathetic Katie Holt, barely alive in the dark hours of the night.

"Pidge."

Lance's hand was on her shoulder. It wasn't powerful or commanding, not the safe security that Shiro always held with him—but smooth, warm, comforting, calm, so painfully _Lance_ that tears anew spilled from Pidge's eyes.

"They're gone," Pidge wailed.

Lance pulled her close, like Pidge's mother often did after the kids teased her in class.

"They're gone," she repeated like a mantra, "he's gone."

Lance didn't say anything. He wasn't like Shiro, he didn't make false promises, he didn't fill her ears with pointless apologies. He was simply _there_ , stagnant and wrapped around her like water, a presence for her and for her only. For both Katie Holt and Pidge.

So there was nothing to say.

* * *

Keith wondered if Lance can see souls.

It was like he could see through them—blue eyes always wondering, despite the constant glimmer, calculating their every move, peering behind their dismissals or heavy sighs. He was there when the sun fell, throwing a comment here or there to turn Hunk's frown to a grin, flip Coran onto a ramble, send Allura to giggles, or even get Pidge to full-out sock him in the shoulder. He was there when the sun shined, throwing a arm around someone in celebration, laughing with a lopsided smile.

For Keith, he did the simplest of things. The rivalry had died down—not that it was ever there to begin with, obviously—but now it was subtle, hints of a friendship that Keith, though he would not admit it, was petrified of. Often Lance would pull Keith away from training to binge awful cartoons with Hunk and Pidge—the CDs snagged from the space mall, of course—laughing with the alien equivalent of popcorn spilling all over the carpeted floor. Occasionally, Keith's shirts would go missing, coincidentally after Lance would spot a hole in one and nag the red paladin endlessly about it; a day or two later, the article of clothing would show up in his closet as if it had never left, a row of stitches in one spot but otherwise as good as new. There was the smiles, too, coming randomly, from behind Allura's head when she lectured them or from across the table when Keith bothered to show up for dinner. The bickering was there, petty and sometimes infuriating, but it distracted Keith from his might-be-dead brother and heavy expectations.

Keith didn't know what to think about Lance. So he didn't think about him, and instead thought about Black. Black, who he poured his whole heart to, who still wouldn't let down her barriers. It made Keith want to scream.

So..maybe thinking about Lance and his weird friendship thing was better than that.

 _"Eyes are the window to the soul,"_ Shiro has once said, after a long, long lecture about patience, _"you can find some answers there."_

They were pretty clear, eyes. Little glass orbs, glinting with certain emotions, dulling with others. Sheer, almost, like fabric.

Lance seeing souls seemed pretty dumb, but to Keith, it would make a lot of sense.


	2. today is a storm

_today is a storm_

Lance kept track of the days.

It wasn't too hard, he'd been counting since the Garrison—sometimes totaled on his fingers, sometimes scratched on the walls, sometimes scribbled onto notebook pads with the fading pen in his jacket pocket. He'd been counting since the Garrison, every month, every second, tallies on his bedroom wall, spinning in his head, forming numbers he concluded were truth but couldn't accept. Yet, he continued.

At least he had been getting good at math, he reasoned, sometimes chiming in when Pidge was rattling off numerical solutions for mind-boggling codes. Besides, he didn't just count days, he counted hours—the hour before training, the hour used for his skin routine, the hour Hunk needed help with cooking, the hour Pidge should be getting to bed—months, days, minutes, seconds. He counted them all.

Sure, he counted stuff a lot, but he wasn't _that_ obsessed with counting. Not like Keith was obsessed with training. The stubborn paladin hadn't stopped since Shiro went missing, skipping most meals—even _breakfast,_ which Hunk had dubbed the most important meal of the day—only to show up for team training with heaping bags beneath his eyes, a forehead sheen with sweat, and a permanent, unmovable grimace.

Lance didn't like thinking about Keith. Thinking about Keith made Lance feel guilty. Thinking about Keith made Lance remember the red paladin's desperate screams to an unresponsive black lion; Keith screeching apologies and sobbing over his own two feet because he was never meant to be a leader at all.

With Keith, there was no more 'rivalry' or friendly banter—just Keith, barely alive, and no Shiro. Lance felt _guilty,_ even if Shiro's disappearance wasn't his fault. Guilty like leaving his family on earth with a meager wage and a load too heavy to carry.

Lance didn't think about Keith. He thought about Pidge, her insomnia, her desperate searching, he thought about Hunk, his warm, shaking hands, he thought about Allura, alone in the cockpit surrounded by algorithms and strategies, he thought about Coran, the distant looks he would gain when no one was watching. Those things he could fix. Keith, he could not. He didn't know Keith, he never had, never would. Only Shiro did; Shiro was gone.

Lance had hoped, once upon a time, that they would be friends. Competing over silly things, rolling in mud pits after storms, laughing to corny jokes, wrestling and racing across sandy beaches, climbing the spindly limbs of those rough, aged trees near his home in Cuba—but it was only Lance's self-inflicted illusion, played on repeat in the back of his mind when Keith shot him a particularly nasty insult or glare.

He ignored the fantasy now; missing less shots during training lessoned Keith's verbal blows. Lance only counted his wins, only his losses, only the days and months and years.

Today was just one more tally.

"Hunk, my man, this looks delicious!" Lance burst, platting up mounds of what seemed like eggs on toast—except the eggs were green. They smelled the same, at least.

"Thanks, buddy," Hunk shot him a tired grin, no doubt rising early to make such a breakfast. Lance swore to himself that he'd help Hunk with lunch.

With this, the kitchen was filled with silence, with only the clattering of dishes when Lance promptly dug in. Resting the shell of his armor-clad elbow onto the counter, he shoveled the egg toast into his mouth.

Both paladins wore their armor, but beneath that hard exterior were two teens, bearing the weight of the universe on their shoulders with bed heads and lopsided smiles.

"Where's Pidge?"

Hunk, whose eyes had been flickering shut, snapped awake. "She's in the hanger, I think. Wanted to talk to her lion."

"Oh, should I bring her breakfast?"

"She came by earlier," Hunk clarified solemnly, "said she didn't want any."

Once again silence fell between the two. Lance grieved the days back in the Garrison, when the pair spoke about leading a fantastic exploration edition into space—Lance would pilot, Hunk would be his right-hand-man—they would carve their names into the history books, like heroes; they would venture across galaxies, describing aliens and fantasy creatures with eyes full of stars and hearts full of fire.

Somehow, deep in space with nothing but fluorescent blue lights, white corridors, and the wandering ghosts of his once lively friends to keep him company, Lance didn't feel like a hero anymore.

Lance's gloved hand wiped some beading sweat from his brow.

"Has it always been this hot in here?" He murmured, desperate to break the silence.

Hunk shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's been getting hotter for a while now." The yellow plopped down into a chair near Lance. "I'm sure Coran will fix it."

Lance scooped more food into his mouth, and lost himself into a fantasy where his little cousins got to tour Blue, _oohing_ and _aahing_ with every word Lance spoke. It made him smile around the edges of his spoon.

"Keith?" Hunk spoke up, eyes suddenly wide. Someone shuffled near the doorway. Lance whipped his head towards the sound, broken out of his momentary daydream.

Standing awkwardly near the entrance of the kitchen, was, in fact, the red paladin. He too wore his armor, but his hair was just as scruffy as theirs, stuck up in some places like the alien fern Pidge kept in her room.

"Hi." Keith grunted.

"U-Uh," Hunk stood up jerkily, almost knocking back his chair, "breakfast, yeah. I'll give you some."

Keith followed Hunk to the counter, and kept his posture tight, closed off and obviously hungry. He had become desperate, Lance realized, after not eating for so long. Keith had starved himself so he wouldn't have to interact with the rest of the team.

 _Heroes,_ Lance mused to himself, _were we ever?_

A fury built in Lance then, but he quickly shoved it down like the rest of his food, and the rage was gone as quickly as it had come, washed away into the deepest, darkest waters, never to be seen again.

"Where's Pidge?" Keith asked suddenly. His voice was rough near the edges, as if he had been screaming, crying, or the like. Lance pushed that thought away too.

"In the hanger," Hunk replied, handing Keith his plate. Keith didn't even sit down, and instead shoved the whole meal down in six bites, wiping the remains from his chin like an animal, and turning for the door.

"Keith." Lance called.

When Keith turned around, there was vexation in his gaze, swirling somewhere in the violet, swirling somewhere in the regret and grief and pain.

"We're here for you." Lance sent the boy a smile, a real smile, albeit shaky at the edges, but there.

Keith nodded, and looked away. The pitted depths beneath his eyes seemed to sink, his lips pressed tightly together, cracked in some places where the red paladin had gnawed at them with his teeth.

 _"Paladins!"_ Allura's voice crackled through the loudspeaker, breaking the eerie quiet, _"Report to the hangers immediately!"_

Lance scrambled from his chair, and Hunk quickly followed. Urgency in Allura's voice meant the situation was no joke. Leaving their discarded plates on the counter, they followed Keith out the room, down the hall, and into the hanger, where they found Allura and Pidge, standing in front of the green lion with concerned gazes trained on the massive machine.

Green, Lance noticed, was turned on, unlike the other lions. But her eyes were flickering, shutting off before blinking on again.

"She's hot," Pidge explained hurriedly, tapping on a small screen in her hand, "she was calling for me this morning, and when I rushed over here and tried to calm her, I burnt my hand on her metal."

Pidge's hand was, in fact, bandaged. Lance's concern grew.

"Wait," Pidge's eyes widened behind the lenses of her glasses, "she's growing hotter again! If this keeps up, her circuits will fry!"

Pidge's hands were trembling, and from behind him, Hunk was sweating nervously. Even Allura seemed concerned, watching the green lion with a pout and a narrowed eyes.

"She must be swooning since _I've_ arrived," Lance spoke up smugly, "the ladies love a burning heart."

The green lion shut down shortly after, the yellow light dimming from her eyes.

Pidge suddenly snickered, muffling a sudden snort with her palm. "She just didn't want to see your face."

Lance gasped in mock offense. "So mean!"

"Paladins," Allura spoke suddenly, her voice authoritative and clear, "there is a planet nearby that desperately needs our assistance. If you could come to the cockpit with me, I assure you I will explain."

"Can you explain why it's so _hot?_ " Hunk whined, "heat isn't great on my bowels."

"Yeah," Pidge added, "Green can't take much more of this,"

"That," Allura mentioned, "you will see for yourself."

With this, there was a comfortable silence, and the group of paladins fell into step behind her. As they walked, Allura began to speak.

"There was a galaxy not too far off from Altea, that was green and lush. It was inhabited by three planets—Crux, Rust, and Crise."

Allura paused in her speech, as if wondering what to say. She continued.

"The Crise were peaceful people. Their planet was the closest to the solar system's star, named Aferon; they lived in comfort with one another, in well-developed towns under large branches of sweeping trees. Their climate was warm, a bit dry, but they survived, without war or famine.

The farthest from the sun were the Crux, whose planet was icy and chilled. Despite their cool exterior, they were easily aggravated race, but in the balance of the three planets, kept the peace harmonious and managed the trading system in the solar system. They were the most technologically advanced—with small ships that carried goods from planet to planet, keeping their small economy stable."

Allura suddenly smiled, tight lipped, yet warm. Lance liked that smile on her—it made her seem less like a princess, and more like Allura, a friend; Allura, so much like his oldest sister, that he sometimes had to look away.

"Rust was the planet I remember most fondly, the planet between Crux and Crise. I visited often in my childhood—they had a bond with Altea that had been kept strong for milenia—so my father often took me with him for visits. Their planet was beautiful, not cold like Crux or hot like Crise, but a perfect in-between, covered in lush grasses and spindly trees with juicy, red fruits that made wonderful wines.

They aided us in the war, and in turn, we aided them with our protection—the Crise strongly disliked them, you see, and feared them because they harnessed a particularly rare power."

"A power?" Pidge spoke up, walking a little faster to catch Allura's eye, "What power?"

"They can see through the physical flesh. What they can see, we do not know, but they are familiar with the veins and arteries, and were a major help on the medical side of the war." Allura suddenly laughed, as if reflecting on a fond memory. "In my early childhood, we often joked they could see our souls."

Lance didn't understand how that was funny, nor was he comfortable with the idea of aliens looking into his flesh, but, like usual, he didn't comment. Somehow, he had gotten used to the puzzling things in the galaxies, and learned that even if they didn't seem real, they were there, like the rain that fell or the ocean that mapped against the shore. Unfathomable, vast, but very, very real..

"Is that all you know about this.. _power_?" Keith questioned gruffly. The paladins stopped walking as Allura pressed the codes to open the cockpit door.

"Yes," Allura replied, "that is the extent of my knowledge. They were secretive, as with any sign of weakness, the Crux would destroy them. With their power's secrets hidden and the peacekeeping negotiations of the Crise, their happiness should've lasted forever."

"But it didn't?" Lance wondered.

"No," Allura spoke solemnly, as the door slid open, "It didn't."

Hunk let out a gasp.

The cockpit was burning with heat, and shining with hues of red and gold. The light streaked in in fiery waves, it's source being a giant, all-consuming inferno of flame licking the surroundings in massive bursts. The star poured out its brilliant hot oranges into the space around them like a pot of molten lava.

"A dying star," Pidge breathed.

"Well," Lance chuckled, but it faded quickly into a grimace. "That explains the heat."

Coran was in the cockpit, of course, sweating up a storm like the rest of them. He scrambles for buttons and pressed them in a worried fever, trying his best to keep the castle stable.

"Why are we so _close_ to it?" Hunk yelped, "we're gonna die!"

"It looks about a decade from combusting and devouring everything around it," Pidge hurried, "what are we doing here, Allura?"

"We are here to help the Crux. They are the only ones left."

Lance finally noticed the planet, orbiting the massive fireball in a slow manner, near the right side of the cockpit's massive window. It was the color of a sun-dried rock, cracked and dug in in places as if someone had hit it with a hammer once or twice.

"We're going down _there?_ " Lance emphasized. "That's crazy!"

"They were the farthest from the sun." the yellow paladin muttered, eyes wide, "so the sun has engulfed the other two planets.." Hunk gulped nervously.

"Paladins," Coran spoke up, wiping sweat from his brow, "I know this sounds impossible, but the Crux were our allies, and we must help them."

Keith nodded, the self-sacrificial bastard. "So what do we do?"

Allura smiled at the red paladin, hesitant, but real. "Currently, according to rumors, the last surviving in this solar system are the Crux and a few Rusts that escaped from their planet before it was destroyed."

"Oh, so we just have to evacuate them from the remaining planet?" Lance exclaimed, more confidently than he felt, "that shouldn't be too hard."

Allura grimaced.

"Is there something else..?" Pidge trailed off.

"As I spoke before, the Crux and the Rust have always been in disagreement." Allura exhaled heavily. "The surviving Rusts migrated onto the Crux, but without the Crise to keep the peace, a war broke out, destroying the Crux's ships and doomed both races to death."

"So we've got a dying fireball, magical aliens, two races trying to kill each other, and no way of evacuating them from the planet?" Lance rattled off.

Allura sent him a look. "We have to try our best."

"But Green is hurt," Pidge argued, "she can't go down there, her circuits will fry!"

"The green lion will be fine, Pidge," Allura pointed out, "Despite her being weak to heat, she is a strong lion. Besides, the surface of the planet is considerably cooler than the surrounding space we are currently in, so she will be fine."

"Is Coran coming with us?" Keith wondered, "The castle isn't in good shape."

Keith was right. The castle's alarms were going off at concerning rates, and once Coran shut one off, another started shrilling.

"I'm sorry, paladins," Coran wailed, "but the castle is being dreadfully stubborn because of the radioactive gasses Aferon is leaking! I can't go any further, and even if I could, I won't be much help; the star is interrupting the castle's communication frequencies at a certain distance."

"That means..?" Pidge mumbled.

Coran turned to them swiftly, flicking a switch with his right hand and gesturing dramatically with his left. "You all will have to manage the coms yourselves once you reach the planet, and you can't stray to far away from each other."

"This is insane," Lance breathed through his nose, in, then out. Behind him, Pidge hummed a noise of agreement.

"Princess," Hunk shook his head, "their planet is dying—I don't think we'll be much help, unless we can evacuate everyone, find a new place for them to live, and stop a civil war in one fell swoop."

"I agree," Lance noted, suddenly serious, "it's very risky, and there's no Galra problems, just..alien racial issues. It's not the place for Voltron."

Keith, of course, didn't speak a word, his expression as unmovable and unreadable as always.

"So we suggest we just let them die?" Allura spoke harshly, an untypical ray of temper shining through. She held herself like a leader, not a victim to fate; she spoke like a queen, not a princess.

Allura was the one in command, in control. Lance could see Allura as the black paladin, and almost laughed aloud at the thought. But that humor was quickly whisked away at the idea of replacing Shiro, that made Shiro's.. _absence_ , more real.

"We have to do this, paladins."

Allura's voice was firm, carrying through the hanger with the prideful power Lance knew she had in her. She turned away from their worried eyes and gazed out the castle's cockpit window, the burning flickering fire of the dying sun reflecting on her heavy crown, fists clenched; she stood with adamant determination, unbreakable.

"They are Aleta's allies. We must."

To this, no one had the heart to argue. The world of Altea was foreign, a stranger to all but Allura and Coran and their memories—thousands of years gone, thousands of years diminished, thousands of years re-told in Coran's heavy accent—foreign like the war, foreign like the vastness, emptiness of space.

So they must.

* * *

"So what's the plan, princess?" Hunk questioned, as they soared towards the planet in a sturdy formation.

Allura, riding in the red lion with Keith, hummed for a moment before deciding.

"We need most of the team on the planet, for negotiations." Allura explained, "However, since Coran had to stay with the castle at a safe distance, we need someone managing communications and keeping a bird's eye view on the situation below."

"Oo, nice," Pidge added with a grin, "you're using the earth phrases I taught you."

Allura chuckled a little, before continuing.  
"Lance, you have the holo screen, correct?"

"The one you gave me before we left the castle? Yeah," Lance stated casually, "but what's it for?"

"It's a camera," Allura explained, "connected to Keith's helmet."

"My helmet?" Keith questioned incredulously. "Why?"

Allura hummed in response. "I have decided on the descending team. Keith, Pidge, Hunk and I will descend into the planet."

"Huh?" Hunk blurted, "but what about Lance?"

"Lance will watch from above, in the blue lion." Allura directed. "Lance, your position will be just above where the red, yellow and green lions will descend."

Lance swelled with pride. "Your wish is my command, princess."

" _What?_ " Keith seethed, as if the very idea was revolting, "Are you sure about that?"

Lance's smile flickered, eyes curiously wide, watching the stars as they sped past Blue in a swirling haze. They reflected on his helmet's visor in hazardous streaks, distracting him as he flew. "C'mon Samurai, don't you trust me?"

Keith scoffed lightly, his consonants crackling with static. "I don't know."

There was a quiver in Lance's throat, so he didn't reply.

"Prepare to land, paladins," Allura called, "Lance, position! Keep watch on the connection levels, and turn on the camera once we land."

Lance stopped Blue in her spot above the planet, watching over the other three lions as they dove into the atmosphere, fire licking around them as if they were comets hurtling towards the land. Lance watched them as they disappeared, shrinking until they were nothing but ants on the massive rock before them.

Lance turned on the holo screen for Keith's helmet camera just as Pidge spoke up on the coms.

"Let's land here," the young paladin suggested, "it's bright red, like a target!"

"Red..?" Allura trailed off, but Hunk interrupted with an agreement toward's Pidge's suggestion. The lions touched down, and through Keith's hazy camera, Lance could make out the bright red in the distance outside Keith's cockpit window.

The four exited their lions. The surface they had landed on, Lance noted, was the color of rust, grainy yet chunky in some places, as if the sand had been ground by a half-blunt cheese grater. All plant life had been burnt away, leaving what remained to be burnt to a crisp by the rapidly expanding star that covered to whole sky above his team. It was visibly hot, heat causing the distance to be hazy, and it had to be miserable, judging by the sweat that was dripping down Pidge's brow as she removed her helmet in the left side of the camera.

"It's..odd," Allura muttered through the coms, approaching on Keith's right as she stepped off the ramp of his lion, "I remember the sand having the hue of a chimgune bun."

"A what?" Pidge blurted, fiddling with a gadget on Lance's screen. Keith sighed audibly, as if he had grown tired of Allura's Altean references.

"It was mostly a tan color." Allura clarifies. "Not red. Though, I suppose the element of a dying star may have changed things."

It was strange seeing things from Keith's point of view; Lance noticed how Keith always checked to see if Pidge was following, and as they trudged on, glanced back at the trio of lions every so often. Lance didn't know what to make of that, so he kept his eyes on the screen, leaving the coms eerily silent without his boisterous comments or jokes.

"How's it going up there, buddy?" Hunk called, and Keith turned his head so the camera filmed the yellow paladin as he cheerily skipped nearby in the sand, "It's pretty hot down here,"

"Good thing I don't join you, then," Lance smirked, despite them not being able to see it, "I would've made it worse."

Keith's groan muffled Pidge's angry grumbles and Hunk's laughter, causing a smile to bloom on Lance's face.

They walked for an hour or so, Lance using newscaster-worthy commentary to document Keith's every step, much to Pidge's amusement. Keith was obviously annoyed by it, muttering ungodly profanity under his breath, but Lance liked to think he was smiling, at least once.

Suddenly, they stopped. Static filled the screen for split second, as if the camera had been jerked at a sudden angle. When the static cleared, Lance was faced with pale, tan sand.

"Guys?" Hunk spoke up. "The red ends here."

Keith's gaze shifted to his boots, where a blotchy barrier separated the red sand from the tan, an abrupt change in color. Keith's white shoes were a bit stained with crimson, as if the sand had been damp.

"Why?" Allura whispered. "I've never seen anything like this."

"Can't be from the sun, then." Pidge reasoned, "this would span most of the patches of this planet. I did some research about the planet's surface, but—red sand, at this scale—where did it come from?"

"It's kind of soupy, too." Hunk discussed, "and darker in some parts than others. The tan peaks through in some places, as if this stretch of land has been drenched in some sort of liquid."

"Liquid?" Keith questioned.

"Like blood," Lance chimed in.

"Ew, Lance!" Pidge yelped, hopping into the tan sand straight away. "Don't say that!"

"Or what?" Lance snickered, "you'll come up here and punish me?"

Without Shiro to stop her, Pidge flicked her middle finger towards the camera.

"You know you're basically flipping off Keith when you do that, right?" Lance quipped smugly.

"Focus, paladins," Allura scolded, "we need to find the Crux."

"Just keep walking," Keith commanded. "We can figure it out later."

So they did. From then on, the walk was quite boring—Lance had run out of jokes, Pidge was starting to stumble, Keith's heavy breaths took up most of the noise. Even Allura was panting, most of her immaculate hair plastered to her forehead in a shining sheen of sweat.

"Hey!" Pidge shouted suddenly, peering at something in the distance with bulky binoculars, "I think I see something!"

Sure enough, as the paladins approaches, Lance could see the city too. It was hazardously built, made of rocks and sheets of what looked like steel, reflecting sunlight flome miles away, blinding Lance even as he watched from the screen.

The closer they got, the more Lance could see. There were towers of rock, makeshift beacons of some sort, with more sheet metal on top to give off their location.

"It's the home of the Crux," Allura informed, "they had the most access to metal."

"It's poorly built," Hunk sighed remorsefully, "but under these circumstances, I understand why."

"Just looks like a hunk of scraps to me," Lance chimed in.

"..did you just make a pun out of Hunk's name?" Pidge wondered doubtfully, tone borderline suicidal.

"Sorry. Guess it was a hunk of junk."

"Never speak to me again," Hunk deadpanned, and Lance let out a snort.

Allura sighed, and they took it as a que to get back to business.

"So what do we do?" Pidge asked, "try to get both sides to become neutral by offering hope of escape?"

Allura nodded. "That is what I planned."

They entered the town, and as soon as they did, faces peered out from behind doors and windows. The streets were quiet, with only the sound of wind and the constant movement of sand filling the mic.

"They're not coming out," Hunk stated. "are they afraid of us?"

Suddenly, through the hazy blur of heat, a figure in white robes trudged across the sand to meet them. As the alien grew closer, Lance began to make out it's features, along with the tan cloaks of the two aliens alongside the first.

"We are the Paladins of Voltron," Allura began, "we are here to help you, Crux."

"Paladins of Voltron?" The white-clothed Crux wondered in disbelief, "they have been missing for milenia."

The Crux in white seemed to be the leader, with her beady black eyes and wrinkled tan skin. She gave the group of paladins a once over, motioning for the two almost identical Crux behind her to relax their guard.

"I am astonished," she spoke wearily, "you truly wear the armor."

Allura stepped forward, and suddenly bowed her head. "As I said, we are here to help you. You may trust my word—I am princess Allura of Altea."

With this, there was a collective gasp, and distant chatter arising from within the surrounding homes. The Crux must've noticed the markings once Allura raised her gaze again, because the leader's ebony eyes widened significantly more.

"Allura, of the war's history?" The white-clothed Crux murmured, barely loud enough to hear, "How? Altea was lost."

Allura's expression crumbled around the edges. "Altea was lost, but I was not."

The Crux nodded, and the two shared a silence of unspoken grief. Then, with a flick of a three-fingered hand, the white-clothed elder motioned them forward.

"Come, Paladins of Voltron. There is much to be done."

With this, Keith fell into step with Allura, and Pidge fell alongside them, shortly followed by Hunk. They stopped near a larger shack then the rest, which was slightly built into a rocky ledge that poked raggedly into the sand, blocking most of the sunlight and bathing half of the city in shade.

Inside the cave was nothing special—the walls were a sandy pale, the ground was covered with a worn coat of strings, most likely a rug at some point, and the center of the room housed a long, circular table with numerous stone chairs scattered about.

Politely, Allura took a seat, and the other paladins followed.

"You are here to help us, correct?" The leading Crux asked, eyes flickering between them as another alien prepared a meal behind her.

"Yes," Allura confirmed, "we will help you leave this planet before Aferon consumes it."

The Crux nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer. Suddenly, stone plates painted in an oddly colored ceramic coating were slid in front of the group, with of some sort of crushed bug as the main meal, pieces of the shell still stuck and scattered inside. It looked absolutely revolting. Lance threw up in his mouth, and was pretty sure the others were doing the same.

"Enjoy our customary meal, Paladins," the Crux lowered her head, "It is the least we can do."

Hesitantly, Allura lifted her spoon and took a bite. Pidge left her plate untouched, but Keith and Hunk dug in shortly thereafter.

After Allura finished chewing, she met eyes with the Crux again.

"You will do anything to help get us off this planet, correct?" The elder noted quietly.

Allura raised a brow. "If it is possible, then yes."

"I would like you to destroy the remains of the wretched race that invaded our planet, then."

Allura abruptly dropped her spoon. "Which race?" She asked firmly.

"The Rust."

"I will not." Allura's voice hardened. "The Rust are Aleta's allies—we will _not_ harm them."

The room grew tense, and dare Lance say, cold, despite the obvious heat. Keith's hand tightened around his bayard in the corner of the screen. Lance gnawed on his lip, wincing as it began to bleed.

"They are _demons_ of this earth," the Crux trembled with the emphasized word, "they killed our children, our families—searched our very flesh to torment us."

Allura narrowed her eyes. "When I was here last—as a child, I remember, all three planets lived in harmony, both Rusts and powerless alike."

The female Crux sent Allura a dark look.

"It has been millennia since we let them do as they pleased." She mentioned harshly. "Things have changed."

Allura seemed to have an internal debate, before relaxing and letting out a sigh.

"I suppose they have."

The Crux stood abruptly. "I will bring a map of our planet for your use. Stay."

"Damn," Lance spoke through the coms, once the elder had exited and left the paladins alone in the room, "So we'll be fighting against the Rust, then, if they're even _alive_."

" _You_ can't complain," Keith argued balefully, "You're not even doing anything."

"How _rude_! I'll have you know, Blue and I are concentrating up here."

Keith growled, losing patience fairly quickly. "On what, exactly?"

Lance smirked, readying himself for the finishing blow. "The fact that you got bug goop on your chestplate, _estúpido_."

Pidge burst into obnoxious laughter, and Keith snarled, wiping away the food with his glove. Blue sent a warm burst of humor through the link, causing Lance to grin heartily, and let out a few chuckles of his own.

Keith's view was once again on the strange meal they had been served. Lance assumed he was glaring at it, and made a point of unwrapping his chocolate-flavored ration bar close to the mic so he could hear it. Lance laughed in a jolly-natured way, shoving the bar in his mouth and chewing loudly through his words. "Well _that_ wooks twasty, guys,"

" _Shut—_ "

Suddenly, a high pitched ringing filled Lance's ears, and he tore his squealing helmet from his head, startled, the ration bar falling from his grasp. The holo screen blurred into static, and Keith's hostile reply was lost to the muffled connection. Lance swallowed his mouthful of sweet alien chocolate; the camera blinked off.

Silence. Eerie and still. Blue felt concerned in the link, sending comforting thoughts Lance's way, but the blue paladin was frozen for the slightest of moments, alarmed and distressed.

Lance cautiously re-equipped his helmet, speaking up into the coms, barely able to hide the tremulous pitch in his voice.

"..Guys?"

Lance turned off the blank holo screen, and once it blinked off and displayed Blue's view, Lance noticed the atmosphere of the planet Crux was draped in a massive, intimidating storm.

"Oh, oh _Dios_."

Lance turned on the planet scanner Pidge installed, wincing when the size of the storm calculated to spanning half the planet.

"Blue, _hermana_ , this isn't good."

Lance glanced out the window once more. The storm was swirling against the planet's tan surface, to the point that he couldn't see the desert anymore. The clouds rumbled and trashed, bubbling up and bursting in streaks of lightning, exploding into fiery crackles when they reacted with the planet's burning atmosphere.

"This is _not_ good," Lance panicked, as his scan for the planet's detected life forms came up inconclusive, "Do you think they're safe in those dinky huts? _Ni hablar_ , Blue."

Blue rumbled in agreement, usure as of what to do. She sent an image of Red, Green and Yellow, safe, but in a dangerous spot, as sand whipped around them hazardously and lightning flashed in every direction.

"I've been getting bad vibes since the start." Lance admitted, clenching his shaky hands as the storm raged on Crux's surface. "And what was with that sand they landed on?" Lance muttered incredulously, "Splattered around, like blood, and.." Lance shuddered, ".. _soupy_ , like blood."

Lance tapped his controls in a flurry, trying to contact Coran. As he expected, the connection beeped out on the second ring, due to the dying star's radioactive waves. Returning to the castle wouldn't do anything either. Lance squeezed the arm of his chair, gazing out onto the planet uselessly. " _Dios_. I should've been paying more attention. Where the hell did that storm come from?"

An image formed in his mind, and in Blue's point of view, he watched a dying star cause a massive weather buildup on a planet not unlike the one before him.

"Right." Lance muttered, aggravated, "Big ass fireball. That'll do it."

The pair watched the destruction before them, and thoughts tumbled from Lance's lips before he could stop them.

"There's something wrong," he whispered suddenly, voice lowering with every word, "but I don't think it's been right for a long, long time."

Blue didn't respond; she didn't have to.


	3. staring down the sun

_staring down the sun_

A long time ago, space was a dream.

Lance, scrawny, skinny, covered in bandages and wearing hand-me-down clothes, would sit on the porch with his abuela, and whisper, _someday, I'll be up there, in the stars._ He reached until he couldn't reach anymore, when his fingers fell asleep and arms began to quiver.

 _Be careful, Lance,_ his abuela would chide, fearing for him every time he stared too long. Her hands would shake as she drove a needle through thread, _If you aren't careful, the stars will steal you away._

But on nights when the moon lit the sky and smudged shimmering patterns amongst the waves, Lance would gaze upward until he felt the flow and ebb in his bones, felt the blinking stars swirl in his eyes. _I want to go there,_ he would murmur against the dark, when his siblings quieted down and he was the only one still awake; _I want to go there,_ he would whisper out the open window, _I belong there._

Sometimes, he wondered if it was Blue all along, pulling him from his dreams and out into the night when the beach was empty and all he could see was the engulfing expanse above him, the water lapping against his toes, the hazy streaks of overhang melting into the speckled indigo shores.

He wondered, sometimes, if it was Blue, not the stars, who stole him away—but he supposed it didn't matter anymore. He no longer longed for the night, because he no longer dreamed of battleships and strange planets and infinite lights on the horizon. Now, he had those things.

Instead, he lingered when he should've been asleep, listening to the castle's whirring and imagining it was his brothers, breathing softly in the bunk below him.

Lance no longer dreamed of space. He only dreamed of places he never thought he'd lose. He dreamed of beaches and spindly trees and docks to launch off of, he dreamed of childish laughter and tangerines and old boots trudging through Mama's garden.

He dreamed of the blue of the afternoon haze, the orange of dawn and dusk, but most of all, he dreamed of the days when clouds would carry mist in sheets of muted grey, pelting the windows with drops of crystal rain. Those days were best, when the temperature was perfect for heading out to catch his breath.

Lance found he had no breath left to catch. It had been stolen away from him when he threw Blue into a nosedive, sending her spiraling down into the heart of the storm.

Blue's coating sparked against the atmosphere, and she was immediately sent off course when the wind hit them full on. The clouds whirled around them in earthy shades, as if it were the days when his Mama sprinkled cinnamon on his toast, though the sandstorm was much rougher and it relentlessly pelted against the glass. Lance screamed in desperation, for his friends, for his _family,_ though no one could hear him.

When Blue crashed into the earth Lance felt the impact thunder through him like a tidal wave. It was unlike the crash he took with Keith when they were petty strangers just learning how to fly; Blue toppled over and rolled, tumbling against the crackling earth, sending Lance's body forward and back against the seatbelt, knocking away the air he had never managed to gain. Lance's head ricocheted off his helmet, his helmet jerked against the metal headrest in sickening, repeating thuds, like the knock of a door, like the tick of a clock.

Despite the reinforced padding lining his headgear, the endless blows sent Lance reeling, and when Blue finally slowed to a stop, the paladin doubled over in his chair, blood seeping from his scalp in pulses, dripping onto his trembling hands. His flickering eyes didn't know where to look—at the rusty stains or Blue's beeping monitor—so he shut them. With this, he lost consciousness.

It was better that way, because Lance didn't dream.

* * *

When Lance awoke there was silence. Too odd, too eerie, foreign. Lance lifted his head but the world spun in varying hues. When Lance's vision cleared, Blue's comforting lights were noticeably dark.

Lance called out for her, reached for her in his mind, but to no avail. Blue was as silent as the sandstorm, which no longer pelted against her frame. Lance, with shaking fingers, unclasped the buckle of his chair, and stumbled from his seated position, bracing himself upright on one of Blue's consoles.

 _"Blue."_ Lance whined. His voice felt coarse when he tested the word, his tongue was scratchy in his throat. _"Blue."_

Lance unhooked his bayard from his belt, swaying without support to keep him standing. He trudged towards Blue's exit, stomach turning and ears ringing. A concussion, he knew, and a pretty bad one at that. At least Blue had landed on her stomach and not her side, that would've made exiting more difficult.

When Lance stepped into the sunlight, he could barely see through the blood staining his visor. He rubbed at the protective glass with his free hand, but the blood was caked on and dried, making the action pointless, but spat into his gloves like a true intellect and was able to smudge the rusty stains away.

He immediately squinted when the harsh sunlight bore upon him. Aferon was as merciless as ever, glaring down at him in the planet's cloudless orange sky.

In the distance, though slightly muddled from the heat, Lance spotted a patch of red, stark against the tan that surrounded them. There, towering in the distance, where three lions, proud and welcoming. Relief sent a smile sprawling loopily across Lance's features.

Lance turned back towards Blue. His lion was collapsed among the sand, which billowed around her like waves. She was motionless and unresponsive.

"I'm sorry, Blue," Lance murmured.

So Lance began to walk.

Leaving Blue behind felt treacherous, as if he was betraying a sister. But Blue would understand, Lance knew this for certain, because Blue knew how important family was, just how she knew _Lance,_ how she knew his strength: how much he loved his family. Besides, Blue was a giant futuristic robot lion. Lance knew she would be fine.

As his destination approached, Lance drew a small holoscreen from a pocket in his belt. He held it up and fiddled with it for a second—Pidge had made it, originally to check if alien liquids and foods were safe for humans, but it worked to check the chemical compounds of anything, really.

When Lance stumbled up to the lions he waved obnoxiously, but they too were unresponsive without their respective paladins present. Sighing moodily, Lance turned on the holoscreen and pointed its lense at the ground below his boots.

When the scanner beeped and Lance read its words, his hands shook and his bayard slipped from his grasp.

"No, no," Lance breathed, grasping the holoscreen with both hands, "this is wrong, this is so wrong."

The streaks on Keith's boots, the color of the crimson of his wound—hues as red as Aferon, burning relentlessly in the sky.

The ground was stained with blood.

He looked up from the screen, and moved to take a step, but his feet felt as if they were buried in cement, unmovable. Lance drew his gaze to the crimson sand, which was pooling under his ankles as he sunk.

The holoscreen was abandoned in terror as Lance screamed Blue's name, tearing at the ground around him as the sand reached his torso. Deeper and deeper he descended, the sand sliding around him and caressing his armor-clad figure as if it were alive.

Red, red, red. Red pulled him under, engulfed him, he sank and sank and sank, thrashing in the dark; the red seared his vision and shoveled into his mouth as his muffled screams grew weaker the deeper he sank. Red. _Not blood,_ Lance tried to convince himself, _Red red red not blood just red just poppies and cherry pies not blood not blood not blood—_

His limbs felt as if they were made of lead, they were crushed beneath the weight of the sand, as the red swirled around him like a current, like it was a creature, a snake constricting it prey.

Lance was suddenly weightless. He tumbled into the air, falling to the dusty ground into a pile of tanner sand; Lance's limbs grasped at nothing as he heaved for breath. His meager lunch spilled from his stomach and seeped through the cracks in his helmet's visor onto the cracked, rocky floor. Bile blurred his vision.

"A Paladin of Voltron?" someone spoke, past the ringing in Lance's ears, "I thought they were allied with the Crux?"

"Silence," commanded another voice. "He wears the armor. What species is he? Remove his helmet."

Pressure was put on Lance's throbbing head and he squealed, reaching up to tear at the hands wrapped around his headgear, resisting until three-fingered palms finally yanked the piece armor from his head.

"He is covered in his own secretion." Another spoke. "Disgusting."

Lance pried open his eyes. It was dark, but the figures of the surrounding aliens were easy to make out. There were many surrounding him, skin unhealthily pale, eyes bright and eager, though some backed away, revolted.

"The blood trap worked remarkably," a black-clad alien mentioned, "we have harnessed these powers beyond even our ancestors."

The one who spoke seemed to be the leader. He wore a dark, scrappy cloak with frayed ends that engulfed his whole body, and a long cloth that covered the majority of his head. The clothing covered every inch of his white skin except for his three-fingered hands and sunken face.

"Aren't you a gorgeous bunch," Lance mumbled, his words slightly slurred by the pulsing pain of his migraine.

"Does he have the _color?_ " the leader's companion muttered. All of the aliens wore similar robes, Lance noted, except the leader, instead of tan, wore a deep ebony.

"Does he?" Another chimed in. "We control the blood, but we cannot see it like you do. The color, what color?"

Lance sat up jerkily, scrambling away, only for his back to meet the jagged stone of the cave's wall. The leading Rust approached slowly, eyes beady and colorful against the stark skin layering over his cheekbones.

"Who are you?" Lance shouted suddenly, in a commanding voice he did not feel; Lance reached for his bayard. It wasn't there.

"Oh," the Rust murmured, pupils blown wide and spinning in a deep, pitted green, eager with untold fascination, "I can see right through him."

"S-see what?" Lance laughed shakily, remembering Allura's childhood rumours in his mind, "my soul?"

The Rust laughed, deep and hollow, vibrating through the cave in breathy, eerie waves.

"No, your blood," the murky eyes met his, crinkling with a yellow-toothed smile, "your beautiful, beautiful blood."

* * *

"Are you sure we should do this?" Pidge wondered aloud, following the Altean princess into a deeper tunnel, her glasses reflecting the green light of her emergency torch.

Allura sighed, "I express the same feelings as you, but what choice do we have? We can either wait until the Rusts attack, or search for their hideout immediately. The latter will lead to less civilian casualties."

"That means we'll need to search the whole _planet,_ " Keith grumbled alongside them, "Without Coran—and now that Lance can't get the coms running, we don't have _any_ vantage point to view from."

"Oh, don't blame it on Lance," Hunk reasoned, "I'm sure he's doing his best."

"I could've done better." Pidge boasted moodily.

"Pidge!" Hunk squaked.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" The teen waved her arms around with a laugh, "Lance is smart, he'll figure it out."

Allura nodded in agreement. "I trust in him. Once the Crux notify that the sandstorm has passed, we shall begin our search."

* * *

They had taken him to a small, barren room of sorts, with a single shelf full of empty glass bottles. The Leader, or he had now dubbed Voldemort, sneered at Lance as his minions tied him to a rickety old chair.

"You guys have great taste in furniture," Lance mentioned sarcastically. "I sure love splinters up my ass."

There was only silence, no one replied to his comment, nor fell for his bait. Lance sighed, ears still ringing despite it being hours since he crashed in Blue. "Sure aren't the talkative bunch, are you?"

The rest of the Rust scurried from the room, and Lance was left alone with Voldemort. The door to Lance's cell—in about as good as shape as the chair—had cracks in it that let light into the room, so Lance could make out his pale, narrow-featured face in the dark. The Rust was truly disgusting, especially when the alien smiled with his oddly misshapen teeth, and scrunched his lopsided nose—if it was even a nose, at that.

"Your resistance was futile, paladin."

"The name's Lance." Lance introduced cooly, "I'll be calling you Voldi."

"We do not have names, here," Voldi notified sternly, "but what you call me does not matter. Paladin, you are an important sacrifice we must make for the revenge of our fallen people."

 _Sacrifice?_ Lance wanted to scream. Instead, he went the safer route.

" _Revenge?_ " Lance questioned, determined to keep the Rust talking, "Is it against the Crux? Why would you do that? Aren't you guys..cool?"

"When Aferon devoured Crise, the Crux refused to take in our people, did not lend their ships, and doomed us all to die."

"Oh." Lance breathed. A pause. "So why am _I_ here?"

"You are a very important sacrifice, paladin," Voldi repeated solemnly, "for the good of our people."

Lance tugged his bare wrists against the ropes, wincing as the knots tore into his arms.

"Hey, we could talk this out, man." Lance laughed nervously as the Rust did not slow his approach. "C'mon, I mean, I'm a paladin of Voltron, people need me."

"Your blood is mine. It will be put to good use, I promise." Voldi murmured kindly, sliding up his sleeves to reveal boney arms the color of quartz.

"Woah, woah, I-I don't think I'm old enough for blood donations, yeah."

The alien pulled out a small object from a pocket in his robe, and when he moved closer, Lance noticed the object was a sharpened stone, deep grey like it had come from the center of the planet.

The stone danced on Lance's hand placing pressure in some places, then moving along to others, as if not knowing where to cut; Lance quivered as the Rust's smile resembled something eerily close to pleasure.

In one fell swoop, the sharp edge sliced open Lance's palm. It barely stung, but blood beaded immediately and spilled from the wound, dropping heavily onto the floor, a murky brown in the dark. The Rust had cut one of Lance's arteries.

"W-what are you doing?" Lance burst, confusion turning to terror as the Rust dropped the knife and placed a gentle finger near Lance's wrist.

The Rust smiled. "The Crux can't see red, and we've run out of fruit dye for camouflage, you see."

Lance's arm _pulsed,_ quivering in the restraints, as blood shot from the artery, sucking from the rest of his body and spitting into the air in rapid bursts. Bile rose in Lance's throat as he _shrieked,_ his arm on fire, blood coating his body and his clothes and the rotting wooden chair.

Lance wanted to scream. That was _his_ blood, running down the Rust's face, seeping into his clothes, dripping off the brush the alien painted his spindly white limbs in. But Lance's head was spinning and he could hardly lift it, so he could only watch the red seep into the stone floor, staining like rivers in the dark.

"N-not very efficient way of collecting it," Lance slurred," _t-tonto._ "

"No," The Rust disagreed, licking the blood from the point of the weapon with a thin, pink tongue, "this is _much_ quicker."

Lance watched in horror and his own blood sunk into the Rust's pours, soaking into the creature's body and turning the exposed marble skin an eerie red.

* * *

"Stay safe, Keith, alright?"

Allura's voice was hesitant, and behind her solid posture, Keith saw a little bit of himself, leading with nothing more than a sense of duty and the overwhelming weight of the universe on his shoulders. How often he used that phrase, how often they _all_ used that phrase—but it didn't make it any less true.

The supply mission was simple. Keith trudged for miles on end, sand battering against the clear visor of his helmet and causing him to stumble in the desert. He follows the holo map on his wrist, and approached the red spot like before.

The lions were there, standing tall and otherwise immaculate, as they were when Keith left them. He let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding when Red's presence entered reassuringly into his mind.

"Hey." He greeted the lions. It was carried away by the wind as soon as if fell from his lips.

He prepared to enter and grab the supplies Pidge ordered, but spotted an odd object jutting up in the sand, visible despite the cloud of dust swirling around him. Keith approached cautiously, slowly.

It was Lance's bayard. Keith's hands shook when he dug it from the ground.

The weapon was slightly stained from the red sand, but that same accented blue gleamed up at him mockingly, reflecting the blinding starlight of Aferon from above.

Keith inhaled heavily. Lance should've been in space, fixing their communications and goofing off like usual—but somehow, the communications had been abruptly shut off, a massive storm had hit, and Lance hadn't been heard of in days.

Yet here was Lance's bayard, scratched up but otherwise in immaculate condition; it had been barely buried in sand, so it must've been dropped recently. Yet no blue lion, and no Lance. Dread curled in Keith's stomach like a snake, slithering its way up his throat.

But suddenly the ground collapsed from beneath him and he was pulled under, not even managing to scream.

* * *

Lance waited. He couldn't tally with his hands tied back as they were, but he was good at waiting, counting second after second as it passed by.

One, two, three, four. Lance thinks of one to ten, ten to one, counting up and counting down. _Are you ready?_ He would call, _here I come!_ Then his siblings would shriek with laughter from their hiding places around the yard, squealing when he got to close, giggling in amusement when he found them.

The door opened with the mangled screech of rusty metal, and curses filled the air; Lance lifted his gaze, and watched the red paladin as he was shoved in, Rusts following closely behind. Hope spilled in Lance's heart, and suddenly, the room didn't seem as cold—then there was pure, paralyzing terror, unspoken, running through Lance's veins. They would both die, now.

"Get off me!" Keith snarled, yanking on his chains. "Get—"

"Keith?!" Lance yelped.

Keith's eyes raised to meet his, a fiery storm of mixed emotions, livid, relieved, weary.

" _Lance,_ " he breathed, his voice shuttering and rolling, as if something was caught in his throat.

"How—!" Lance's panicked tone was on the verge of a screech, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I should as the same to— _urk!_ " Keith was sent sprawling forward when a Rust slammed a rock to the back of his neck, temporarily stunning the him as he was chained to the cell's jagged wall.

"Prepare the glasses," Voldi commanded to the second Rust, "we have two paladins we must extract from."

A number of colorful curses spilled from Keith's mouth, even if the red paladin didn't know quite what that meant—Lance wasn't planning to let him find out.

"Wait," Lance's voice was firm, like Allura's was, like his mother's was in his memories. "He's part Galran. His blood is Galran."

Silence, heavy and unforgiving. Lance held his breath.

The Rust reeled back as if he had been shocked. "A _Galran?_ " He sputtered, taken aback, "One of those _monsters?_ The destroyers of Altea?"

Lance winced. Keith growled lowly. Lance could feel his glare even in the dark.

"Double his restraints," the Rust called to his companion, "do not touch his blood."

Keith, as if realizing what Lance had intended all along, whipped around to face him. " _Lance,_ what does that mean? What's going on?"

Lance could barely make out Keith's expression in his peripheral vision, and decided not to turn and meet his eye. There was no turning back now.

"It's a shame," the Rust muttered, "we captured him for nothing. Though I suppose we now have leverage against the Crux, with two paladins in our possession."

Lance's injured hand trembled against the metal clamp. The Rust drew the sharp stone from his pocket, still crusted with old blood.

"What the _hell_ are you doing," Keith seethed, as the Rust tapped the cut on Lance's palm with the crimson-colored weapon.

Then, he sliced.

The fountain of red, the sputtering spray was nothing new, he had seen it before, but that didn't make it any less painful. Lance clenched his teeth as hard as he could muster, but his muffled screams still shot past his lips, not as loud as Keith's shouts, but definitely there.

Lance had forgotten how much blood the human body had, as he often did. Today was just another reminder.

 _"GET OFF OF HIM!"_ Keith screeched, his voice rising an octave, so, incredibly feral and angry that Lance shuddered, both with pain and terror. _"GET AWAY FROM HIM!"_

That was three slices on his palm now. One, two, three. Three cuts, three days. Lance wondered if his armor had been dyed, maybe pink, maybe red, maybe sickeningly purple like his arm. He tasted the metallic liquid on his lips, he felt it balance on his lashes, he felt it dampen his hair, he felt it soak into his boots. His nerves quivered beneath his skin, his jaw trembled against itself, his skin rippled, his cheeks grew taunt.

 _"STOP!"_ Keith screamed, thrashing madly against the restraints, wrists tearing against the chains.

The Rust sealed the cut, and the blood stopped shooting through the opening as quickly as it had started. From the light streaming from crack in the door, Lance could tell the Rust was completely coated in red, which soaked into his skin once more. The Rust smiled; Lance's blood stained the alien's teeth.

 _"No mas,"_ Lance commanded frantically, teeth chattering.

"Thank you, Lance." The Rust spoke sincerely, sealing the cap of the glass bottle he had directed the remainder of the hazardous spray into, "We thank you for your sacrifice."

Lance's arm was on fire, but the familiar light headed feeling made even the pain fade away. His neck released, and he could barely move it, his head dropping, his vision blurring; Keith breathed heavily next to him.

"Lance," Keith's voice cracked slightly, a mix of fury and unbearable regret.

Lance managed a quivering smile, eyes tearing up from the pain pulsing through his body. "C'mon, bud," He slurred, "the less blood they get, the better."

In the blackout, Keith was visibly trembling with rage—Lance didn't know to whom it was directed; in the silence that followed, Lance knew he would never find out.

* * *

"Keith hasn't come back, princess," Hunk tittered, concerned, "scouting runs shouldn't take this long."

"Indeed, I am worried." Was Allura's reply, but she seemed distracted as she scoured the records on the Crux's remaining computer chips.

"It's been a quintant," Hunk emphasized, "plus, Lance hasn't gotten the coms back up, so there's no way of contacting either of them."

"So what do we do?" Pidge asked, biting her lip. The girl's fingers danced on the edge of a holographic keypad, pausing at spastic intervals.

"We need to go find Keith." Hunk replied firmly, with all the sincerity in the world.

"Paladins!" Allura squaked suddenly, though it was somehow to dignified to be a squak, "our mission is the Crux right now. They are our highest priority; we cannot just leave them alone, they would be in danger of an attack."

Silence. Pidge watched fire burn in Hunk's eyes, rising from deep inside of him where it has resided for much too long.

Hunk scrunched his nose, glaring the Altean down with an inferno behind his lids, a furious expression adorning his face that didn't quite fit him. "So what," he quoted, "we just let him _die?_ "

With her own words used against her, Allura fell silent, staring at the piles of computer chips with something akin to shock.

"W-What's more important," Pidge spoke up softly, pleadingly, "these old, war-hungry aliens, or Keith?"

Allura exhaled.

"Let us go, then."

* * *

Keith's father told him stories.

The stories were funny little things, whispered beneath the covers with flickering flashlights and starry eyes, or spoken aloud in bursts, perched precariously on the roof when the telescope just didn't do justice. Tales of dragons and space aliens and giant robots and knights and princesses, all mixed together in an uncontainable mess that Keith's child mind couldn't help but long for.

His father was terrible at stories, and Keith learnt this eventually. Once the raven-haired preteen was put into foster care, a combination of too much time on his hands, too many bookshelves, and the overwhelming yearning for his father's entrancing jargon revealed the truth. Keith found that the stories were not in fact conjured by his father—they were simply plagiarized collections of fairy tales such as _Rapunzel_ mixed with passages and lines of script from _Transformers_ and _Cars 2._

..That didn't make them any less special, though. They were still a part of his father that Keith didn't want to forget. His father, the man who frowned less and smiled more, who gesticulated with wide eyes and toothy grins when the hero finally saved the day and defeated the long-haired-dancing-car-a-tron. Ridiculous, really. But Keith remembered every word.

It was dark in the room—Keith was reminded of the caves back home; he remembered the desert he had grown up in, the vast stretches of golden sand, the syrupy dawn and endless days, his father's stories—the only shimmer of light spilled from a crack in the door, illuminating the features of Lance.

Hours passed, and slowly, Lance began to lift his head. His breathing became more steady, no longer like wheezing gasps that echoed in the inky room. And finally, when he opened his eyes, Keith's heart stopped dropping in his chest.

"Alive?"

Lance nodded.

"Will they..come back?"

Another nod. It was a little jerkier than the last; Lance kept his eyes on the door, expression carefully blank, uncharacteristically solemn. It was foreign on his face—Lance was the bright one, the soothing one, the reliable one. The expression was so incredibly _wrong_ that Keith felt the desire to rip it from the blue paladin's features like one would a bandage.

"Lance."

The only confirmation that the blue paladin had heard Keith's words was the sharp intake of breath.

Keith paused. It was harder than he expected it to be, to hold a conversation without petty arguments, sarcasm, or anger.

"There once was..a Long-Haired-Dancing-Car-A-Tron."

Lance snorted suddenly because of the abruptly absurd change in topic, choking on his inhale. Keith took his reaction as a hint to continue.

"It liked space, and when it was a small Long-Haired-Dancing-Car-A-Tron, it really wanted to go there and stuff." Keith wracked his brain, biting his lower lip. "So when it got bigger, it built a big tower that led up to the stars."

"How the hell did it do that?" Lance rasped, humor evident in his tone.

Keith's lips twitched. "The power of anger."

"What the fuck."

"So it.." Keith scrambled through fairy tales in his mind, "accidentally trapped itself in the tower?"

"Don't ask me." Was Lance's blunt retort.

"But then a hero came and tried to save it."

"Lemme guess—a knight in shining armor."

"A dinosaur." Keith blurted in perfect monotone.

Lance chuckled, finally, his dirt-coated cheekbones highlighted in the ebony engulfing them. He smiled faintly—the first proper semblance of one he'd managed in all of three hours, and it was like the dawn breaking across the night sky; beautiful in its simplicity, and unappreciated for its constancy until the day it is late to come.

"You're terrible at stories," Lance teased, his lips cracked and dry.

Keith sighed, defeated. "So _you_ tell one."

Lance raised a brow. "Why the sudden interest, Samurai?"

Keith pointedly ignored that question. "Will you..tell me about your family?"

Lance's face grew brighter, if possible, until in itself it was radiant enough to lighten the room.

So they stayed like that, Lance rambling about family members Keith never met and jumbled Spanish phrases and terrible road-trip pop songs; Lance told him of crystal beaches and rainstorms and jumping in puddles with polka-dotted boots; Lance described Cuba in the summer, biking along the shoreline, wispy winters and drizzly springs, all the while Keith wishing and wishing he had listened before.

"I remembered you, Lance." Keith interrupted, Lance pausing from describing his mother's favorite dish, "from the Garrison. I remember you."

And Lance paused for the slightest of seconds, eyes wide and clear in the dark, before bursting into laughter, loud and rumbling and pure like crystal fountains, spilling into the room, past the blood and the tears.

"Really, though," Keith insisted once Lance had calmed, "you were the one who always smiled at me during chemistry. At first I thought you were trying to get on my side—since I was connected to Shiro and top pilot and all that, but—"

Keith took a gasping breath, suddenly overwhelmed.

"You were just trying to be my friend. All along."

Lance said nothing.

"I'm sorry," Keith whispered, then repeated the apology, for an entirely different reason. "I'm sorry, Lance. I was just—"

"—angry, I know. It's fine." Lance interrupted. "Me too."

"What?" Keith blurted, baffled.

Lance chuckled sheepishly, eyes crinkling in amusement. "Do you just assume I don't get angry?"

"W-well, _no,_ but—"

"Yeah, you do."

Keith just grumbled.

"I was angry—jealous, of you, Keith." Keith opened his mouth to retort, but Lance continued, "You had the talent I didn't, you succeed like I never could..you still do."

"That's—"

"So, I get angry, I get jealous..duh." Lance said with a shrug of his good shoulder, then sighed, his eyes trained on the ceiling, looking somewhere where Keith could never reach. "Everyone gets angry, Keith. Everyone gets sad. That's just how it works. Emotions are a big, jumbled mess that no one can explain."

Keith lowered his gaze to his blood stained boots, suddenly feeling smaller than ever before.

"..I'm sorry."

"Hey!" Lance grinned in the darkness, "No need for that! We're family, families get emotional, families disagree, families get in fights—but families always stick together. No one gets left behind."

There was a pause as Keith processed this, then spoke up, unsure.

"..did you just quote _Lilo and Stitch?_ "

 _"You know it?!"_ Lance whisper-screamed in disbelief.

Keith's tone was sheepish. "Pidge told me about it, I guess."

Lance chuckled softly, before glaring at the entrance of their cell, determined, no longer alone, curiously patient in the dark. There was a spark in his eyes that made Keith's voice catch in his throat—he had seen it before, when it came down to a life for a life in the heat of a battle, when Lance wanted to _win._

"We'll get out of here, Samurai," the blue paladin spoke seriously, with all the certainty in the universe, "I promise."

( _He never makes promises,_ Hunk had once said, watching Lance twirl around obnoxiously with Pidge in his arms, _at least not ones he can't keep._ )

Keith let out a breath. "Yeah."

* * *

"I'm—I'm so _stupid,_ " Hunk wailed, clutching at his helmet in a desperate manner, collapsing to his knees.

Pidge shook in place, her body rocketing with trembles, whether from fury or anguish, Allura couldn't tell.

"Hunk—" Allura managed, watching the male crumble to pieces in the sand.

 _"We should've known,"_ Hunk scrambled for breath.

"But we _didn't_ know," Allura reasoned, her eyes hazy as she scanned the horizon around her, sand stinging it blew against her exposed neck, as if taunting her with death; as if repeating, in short bursts of minuscule pain, that all the suffering was the fault of her grieving heart.

Allura's voice quivered. Blue lay unmoving in the crater, blood near her entrance, staining the sand.

"We didn't know."

* * *

Stories eventually run out. Lance had a tale for every topic, a smile for every sibling, a little love for every heart, but it only went so far. Blood still seeped from his wounds in the dark, and in the silence that weighed heavily like lead, familiar footsteps filled the hallway; Keith had begun to tremble uncontrollably.

"He's coming for more," Lance muttered, "they'll be engaging in a war with Crux soon."

"Shut up, Lance."

"I'm running out of blood, Keith."

 _"Shut up."_

* * *

Sand buries. It buries homes, it buries families, it buries cities under grains smaller than an fluttering eyelash, piling up over itself in layers of crumbled rock until it becomes a mass large enough to swallow a planet.

It swallowed the Crux, as they screamed for mercy, it swallowed the Rusts, as they ripped their neighboring species apart, it swallowed the crimson blood they manipulated like magic and used as a lethal weapon, the blood of a boy with clear seafoam eyes and a lopsided smile.

Like the burning star above, which drew closer by the day, the sand did not discriminate. It swallowed everything whole.

* * *

"Lance, you need to stay awake, okay?" Keith called, "Lance,"

Lance's head rocked back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum, ticking, ticking, seconds passing; the blue paladin did not respond.

"Lance," Keith rattled against the chains.

Lance began to murmur, song lyrics in Spanish, and unfamiliar tune, haunting and repetitive like droplets plinking on a window, a fading absence of his usual boisterous tone.

"I miss the rain." Lance mumbled slowly, eyes unfocused. "Did I tell you about the rain, Keith? I miss the rain."

"You did," Keith said desperately, "and your siblings, and jumping in puddles. I remember."

"Outside the window," Lance's lids flicked, voice warbled, "while Mama used to tell stories.."

"Stay awake for me, Lance," Keith pleaded, "stay awake for me, okay?"

"Miss 'er," He said finally, after a heavy, heavy pause. "Miss the rain."

 _"Lance."_

Keith called for him, and called for him again, louder and louder, again and again, but Lance never answered, and only grew paler even in the all-consuming dark.

Keith felt tears welling. He felt a shaking in his chest. Something was flushing out of him, looming. Each time Lance's name slipped from his lips, the syllables grew more and more distorted on his tongue, like static on the radio, buzzing faintly in his ears.

" _Wake up,_ Lance," Keith pleaded, "I need you—you, you always help me,"

Keith couldn't look into Lance's eyes while they were shut, and grief, so familiar, mixed with anger, spilling from his lips in a snarl, in a cry.

"You always helped me, I—I _hated_ you. I didn't understand. I still don't understand. Why did you do it? _Why?_ " He drew in long painful breaths. "I didn't know you, okay? I didn't know why you did it or who you were. You were just _Lance_. The one always bothering me—!"

His voice wobbled until it was high and wailing. _"OKAY? DO YOU HEAR ME?"_ he screamed. Then softer: "You hear me? Lance?"

Keith leaned in close, until the ropes tore at his wrists, his wretched blood beading up against the chains. The light streaming in from the crack in the door outlined the crimson staining Lance's cheeks, Lance's pale face, Lance's damp lashes. The blue paladin was as still as the stones around them, lips gray, eyes unmoving beneath his lids.

Keith spoke the last familiar words in a whisper.

"I'm sorry." He sobbed, voice lowering quieter still, "I'm sorry."

* * *

It started on the battlefield of a thousand year war, as he trudged below a dying star, between the bleeding corpses of the many broken bodies of a pitiful species that had destroyed themselves. The scorched earth cracked beneath his feet, crumbling as he marched.

What started, who knows? There were so many wars with winners and losers, there were so many graveyards with headstones that spanned thousands of miles. There were dead, then there were living, then there were living who killed.

You may say that nothing started at all, that everything had begun long, long ago, the same moment the universe erupted from nothing but a speck, and began a chain reaction of living and killing and dying.

No matter what, it still had begun, Lance slung across Keith's back, body unmoving, blood staining every inch of his skin. Keith trudged across the hardened sand, stepping over bodies, ignoring the pools and rivers of crimson.

The sand was relentless, stinging against the tears in Keith's suit, against the exposed skin of his face. Above them, Aferon burned, in fiery bursts of rust and gold, consuming the sky and the horizon in waves of wispy flame.

 _So much red,_ Keith thought, _so much red._ So instead, Keith thought about blue—expanding oceans, clear skies, his dad's shoddy paint jobs, Shiro's pickup truck, Allura's sweeping dresses, the mugs of tea Coran offered, Pidge's robot collection and Hunk's odd ice cream.

Something built in Keith's chest, a sob he thought. It trapped the air inside, the crushing weight of the moment swirling inside him.

Keith thought of blue—of Lance's eyes, glimmering in the dark.

 _"I promise."_


	4. ever so gently

_ever so gently_

 _"Allura!"_

 _"Princess, where—!"_

 _"Are you seeing this? Allura!?"_

Allura knew everything, but at the same time, she knew nothing.

She had a mind swirling with memories, colors and ball gowns, fields of flowers so scented they made your head spin and cheeks flush, her mother's smile, her father's eyes when they crinkled, ever so slightly. She knew of Altea, of their laws, the parchment in tightened fists, maps laid out on embellished tablecloths. She knew Altea would not have allowed this. They were a fair people. Just in their laws, reasonable but not cold—sympathetic to the troubles of those less fortunate, like the Crux and Crise and Rusts, all those years ago.

Allura was not like her people, she was not like her father. If it were him who had survived he would've known what to do. Allura knew nothing—though in the same moment, she knew what she did was wrong. She knew that her commands killed, that her pointed finger sent Galra ships falling from the indigo skies, fire pouring from every lilac crevice, metal tearing itself apart, gravity throwing flesh into shards of glass, like a hurricane of death and flame. So different from the days of her childhood, when the castle halls were filled with noise and movement and music; her people were naturally vibrant—the walls were plain without the streamers banners, fluttering garments and locks of silver hair.

Allura was still a child. She knew this abstractly, in sequences and star charts, and she knew it personally, in Coran's gaze, his downturned smile, despair painted across his face when he thought she was not watching. They were all children; the paladins, so small and frail, bones made of glass, skin like eggshells. Yet they were the universe's saviors, warriors on broken battlefields, killers a thousand times over. Pidge was fourteen. Allura was too tired to hurt, but something in her broke at this revelation—as her littlest paladin let out a cry, the desert around them all the more engulfing. Blue quivered as Allura guided her, worried for her paladin, who might as well be dead.

Altea was fair. She remembered old lessons, balance, peace; equality between all, tranquility in the air. The stories of legends, just like her father, men and women who fought for the lives of others besides themselves. They were all creatures despite their celestial attributes—those legends—they bled and hurt and hoped like anyone else.

Legends were not born; they made themselves. It was both terrifying and a comfort to Allura.

(They destroyed themselves. Just like Zarkon. Just like her father.)

She never wanted to be a legend.

 _"Allura—! The Rusts have—"_

 _"Allura!"_

* * *

Keith inhaled but it tasted like smoke. Fire was supposed to be his element, but at the same time it was his enemy, brightening the world around him until his head spin and mouth grew dry, scraping against the roof of his mouth. Lance's legs dragged behind him, feet scraping against the sand, leaving streaks in their wake. So limp, so lifeless.

Blue was gone, somewhere in the sky, somewhere on the horizon where explosions rocketed against the surface. But Red sat patiently in the pastel sand—sand not as crimson as it used to be, as if the blood had been sucked away. Red opened for him, as if she had been waiting all along, as if his calls to her meant nothing. There was fire in Keith's vines. He was burning, again. Keith didn't know why he was so hung up on it.

 _"I promise."_

Just words, simple words. Just like a story. It was easier to think of it like a story. Lance would wake up, everyone would be okay, Shiro would come home in a shower of streamers and half-hearted lectures, Pidge would yabber about code, Hunk would clap his hand to Keith's shoulder, Lance would make some quip about Keith's hair and everyone would live happily ever after.

 _"I promise."_

Keith was tired, so, indescribably so. He just wanted to go home, he just wanted to go home. Lance was slumped against the cockpit wall and his breathing was too shallow, too spastic, like Keith's beating heart. There was too much blood on his armor and it was terrifying.

Keith could hear Shiro advising him in his head, telling him it was alright, that Keith was still a child. Keith wanted to scream. To scream that he had, in fact, grown up. That his training wasn't for naught and all his fears and worries weren't meaningless and—but no words left his mouth. Shiro left too many responsibilities behind and it wasn't alright because Keith wasn't ready. He wanted to be angry at Shiro for abandoning him, just like everyone else. But he couldn't. He just couldn't.

(Keith could save the universe because that was simple. The Galra were the bad guys and they had to be stopped. Shiro wasn't bad or wrong, he just..never understood. And Keith didn't have the strength to stand up to something so uncertain.)

Oh, and the sky was still filled with fire and dust. Lance was breathing but his eyes were still shut. Keith was scared that Lance would leave just like his dad, and the only thing left would be the stories of the pleasant sound of raindrops and laughter along the beach.

 _"I promise."_

Lance's words rung in his head like church bells, like an echo in the mountains, singing in his skull, thumping in his rib cage.

 _"I promise."_

Keith cried. Red roared.

* * *

Coran bandaged the red paladin's arms with careful precision. It was easy to do, so he made the bandages as perfect as he could to distract himself, like he did with cleaning, like he did with rambling about tales of his home.

Hunk hovered aimlessly, Pidge stared at Lance's cot with tear tracks noticeable on her cheeks. Allura said nothing. Coran bandaged Keith's arms in silence, accompanied by the _plip_ of Lance's blood drip, in eerie tandem.

"You're good to go."

Keith moved sluggishly out the door, and the other two paladins followed. They stumbled from the room, shedding pieces of scuffed armor along the way, leaving clinks and clatters in their wake, knuckles clenched tightly, gloves hiding the callouses on their hands. Allura watched them go, and Coran observed her, almost as a second nature. There was something untraceable in her eyes, Coran noticed.

She looked so terribly tired, eyelids sinking in the fluorescent lighting; everything seemed to catch up to her in that one moment—the death of her home, the broken bodies of her paladins, the destruction of the only remaining planet where her memories resided.

"Am I doing well, Coran?" She asked quietly, with such desperation, a tired, horrified desperation that he so rarely heard from her.

"Of course," Coran placed a hand on her shoulder, and left them both in the haunting silence. "Princess."

He tried to smile, but it fell from his lips. He searched his mind for a story, something absurd, but came up with nothing.

Coran wondered how long they could continue in this state for.

* * *

Lance awoke.

The windows were black, the stars were pathetic little specks, sounds were muddled together, Lance's limbs were weak, and he could barely lift his head. Shadows were swift around him, dancing together in hazy, vibrant colors, twists of garments and blurry skin tones and the click of heels on marble flooring.

Lance couldn't make out what the figures were saying, but their voices were soft and comforting, the way Lance used to speak when he was tucking his siblings in. Lance tried to pry his eyes open all the way, but when he did, he was blinded by the fluorescent bulbs above, so opted for squinting like before.

His overall surroundings were overwhelming, streaky and hazardous like a child's watercolor painting; the room strongly resembled the scribbles his youngest sister made with colored pencils and hung all over his Mama's fridge.

Someone fiddled with the crimson tube attached to his arm, and when Lance lifted his heavy head, he saw a bushy mustache the color of tropical tangerines. Eyes dilating, he chuckled, the sound scratchy in his throat. There was an abrupt silence. Coran stared down at him with wide eyes, dropping the blood drip, hands quivering silently.

"Papa's got'a mustache like yours." Lance mumbled, smiling loopily, "Mama makes fun of 'im lots."

"Lance?" Trembling arms encircled Lance's figure, sitting him up from his corpse-like position, pulling him close to a wide chest. " _Lance_ ," Hunk sobbed, tears dripping onto Lance's forehead, trailing down his scalp. Hunk's breaths were heaving and so, so relieved.

The telltale pitter-patter of boots filled his ears, and suddenly he heard a young girl's squeal, and the audible sobs of Pidge.

 _"LANCE!"_ Pidge screeched, tears bubbling over as she tumbled into the pair to join the hug, leaning over the cot in an uncomfortable jolt.

"That's m-my name," Lance laughed, stumbling on the syllables when his mouth wouldn't cooperate.

A soft, dainty hand brushed against the nape of his neck, and rubbed his shoulders. "Lance," Allura's voice was shaking, on the verge of a whimper. Coran drew closer, pulling her in, "We're very relieved you're alright."

More footsteps, heavier, hesitant.

Keith.

"I pr-promised, didn't I?" Lance declared firmly, slurring his words, eyes narrowed towards what he thought was Keith's general direction.

Keith choked on his inhale, sniffling, a broken sob. "Yeah."

Lance's vision was still hazy, but Keith's cheeks were shiny in the blur. He wondered why, and wanted to get a better look, but Hunk pulled him closer and his eyelids were too heavy.

"Get some rest, my boy," Coran muttered fondly, "you deserve it."

Pidge spoke up between her sobs, pressing herself into the hug. "H-Hell yeah he does."

There were arms on all sides, warm jackets, small hands, long hair, worn t-shirts and musty gloves. Lance exhaled heavily. He hated heat, but right now, he was content with being warm.

"Missed you." He mumbled, dumping his full weight into their grasps. "My family."

Pidge wailed again, her small shoulders shaking. Allura tucked her face into Lance's collarbone, tears dampening his shirt. Hunk nodded, his hair tickling Lance's neck.

Keith's voice was close to his ear—albeit shaky, but whole. "Me too."

* * *

Nothing was better, but things were okay.

 _"Hey Lance, can you see souls?"_

 _"W-what? Where did you get_ that _idea?!"_

It was more than enough.


End file.
